I am a college graduate who earns his living working as an hourly on a factory floor. I have found that I prefer this to retail management and customer service, which I have also done though admittedly it does not pay as well. I am a Bible Believing Christian and politically I am center-right. This is just a place where I share my thoughts on anything that catches my mind.

Saturday, October 22, 2005

These Photos are Beyond Disturbing

These pictures are horrible and disturbing beyond belief, and I wish they didn't exist, or rather, that the reality they portray didn't exist. Sadly it exists and there is so little that I can do about it. They are comparable to the pictures of stacked corpses in the Nazi Death Camps yet these people are still alive, but doomed, in some of these pictures. They are pictures of Chinese citizens being prepared for execution and executed.

Proffessor R. J. Rummel of Blog Democratic Peace, first posted the links. I used alta-vista's Babel Fish to translate some of the Chinese writing around them and it was just matter of fact statements that these were people being executed.

I never want to see these pictures again, yet believe that they need to be seen. China leads the world in executions and has over 50 crimes that allow for the death penalty. I believe that it is appropriate to execute a person guilty of murder, but, in my opinion, no other crime should recieve the death penalty. I do not believe that all of these people were murderers.

The site that they are posted on is apparently in Taiwan, which would explain their hostility to the Communist mainland.

www.boxun.combabelfish works well enough so you can explore this site in English and have a good enough idea of what's going on. There is also amazing, amazing material on the other horrors the Chinese have had to suffer: the Nanking massacre, the Cultural Revolution, and the crushing of the democracy movement in Tienanmen Square. Remember Tianamen, the Chinese do:http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=zh_en&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.boxun.com%2fhero%2f64%2f3_1.shtml

If anyone is interested, here is a short article about capital punishment in the PRC:

"China has the death penalty for 68 crimes includingmurder, drug trafficking, rape, re-selling VATreceipts, pimping, habitual theft, stealing or dealingin national treasures or cultural relics, publishingpornography, selling counterfeit money, economicoffences such as graft, speculation and profiteeringand even killing a panda. During the "Strike hard" campaign against crime inChina during the Spring of 2001 Amnesty Internationalrecorded a staggering 1,781 executions, includingthose of at least 5 women. This figure is greater thanthe total number of executions carried out in the restof the world put together in the last 3 years.China does not publish statistics about the deathpenalty, saying these are a state secret.Executions are often carried out immediately after apublic sentencing rally and the criminal's family ismade to pay for the bullet.The prisoner's arms are shackled behind them and theyare made to kneel down before receiving a singlebullet fired at close range into the back of the heador neck by a soldier or policeman or by a bullet firedinto the heart from behind using an automatic rifle. Chinese laws do not specifically state the site ofexecution grounds and shootings are carried out atmilitary target ranges and along river banks and onremote hill sides, the prisoners being transported inopen lorries from the sports stadiums where they weresentenced.Condemned criminals are not executed inside prisonsbecause it is regarded as inhumane for other inmatesto hear the sound of gunfire.In a typical mass public execution in December 1995 13men and women convicted of murder and highway robberywere shot after the Court dismissed their appeals.Chinese television showed the nine men and four womenbeing paraded at a sports stadium in front of a crowdof more than 10,000 before being taken to theexecution ground on a nearby hillside.Frequently the kidneys, hearts and corneas are removedfrom the dead prisoners and used in transplants atlocal hospitals."Execution is one of the indispensable means ofeducation," China's paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping,once said.During 1997 China began experimenting with lethalinjection and this may possibly replace shooting indue course."

However, I believe they are still mainly using shooting, though I'm not sure.

The big mystery for me is who is taking these extremely graphic closeups and why? I can't imagine them serving any official purpose, but how else could they be photographed on scene, unless in an official capacity? And how do they get to the outside world? I think someone would have to risk their lives to smuggle these out, unless the PRC leadership wants these out there for some unfathomable reason. And why are the pictures mainly of young women, when apparently, they make up only a small percentage of the condemned? (5 out of 1781?)

And alongside China as one of the five biggest executioners in the world are, er, er, yep that's right the good ol' US of A.Oh well at least the Chinese don't go around illegaly invading anybody and causing who knows how many innocent deaths in the process. Those are truly the traits of an awful countryI don't hear them saying you're with us or against us either.Abu Ghraib anybody?

Please let me know if you're looking for a article author for your weblog. You have some really good articles and I feel I would be a good asset. If you ever want to take some of the load off, I'd really like to write some articles for your blog in exchange for a link back to mine.Please shoot me an e-mail if interested. Regards!

My programmer is trying to persuade me to move to .net from PHP.I have always disliked the idea because of the costs. But he's tryiong none the less. I've been using WordPress on several websites for about a year and am nervous about switching to another platform.

I have heard fantastic things about blogengine.net. Is there a way I can transfer all my wordpress content into it? Any kind of help would be greatly appreciated!

About Me

From High School I went into the Navy where I served a little over two years and got discharged for medical reasons. I studied and trained for the Ministry but am temperamentally unsuited for that job so I entered retail and food management for several years. I really wanted to write fiction so I decided to get a factory job while I did it. I found that I am actually happy producing things in a factory and I have written a couple of novels, which I hope never see the light of day :-D.